


5 Times Harley Was Kissed + 1 Time She Wasn’t

by madealine



Category: Batman (Comics), Batman - All Media Types, Batman: Arkham (Video Games), Batman: The Animated Series
Genre: Angst, F/F, F/M, Fluff, Harley kisses a lot of peeps, Minor Character Death, this is longer than I meant it to be
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-30
Updated: 2019-06-30
Packaged: 2020-05-31 03:28:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,615
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19417546
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/madealine/pseuds/madealine
Summary: Harley Quinn has kissed a lot of people. Sometimes it leads nowhere, other times everywhere, but no matter what she always finds herself in some sort of dilemma afterwards.





	5 Times Harley Was Kissed + 1 Time She Wasn’t

5 Times Harley Was Kissed By Someone + 1 Time She Wasn’t 

#1: Guy Kopski

Harleen could distinctly remember the first time she had ever questioned her loyalty to Guy Kopski. It had happened on Halloween night in 2012, just under two months after she had started working at Arkham Asylum. Coincidentally, it was also the day of her first session with the infamous Joker, a man she would later come to throw away her promising career for. 

The Joker was, in short, not an easy patient. Obviously. But Harleen had expected him to at least be talkative. Every other doctor had quit working with him either out of injury or mental exhaustion. So, justly, she had expected to walk out of the therapy room with either a splitting headache and too much information to process in a week, or with a ring of bruises around her throat.

Well, she had the headache, just not from his voice. It was the complete lack of it. The Joker has opted not to say a word to the young doctor, and she had grown so agitated she ended the session fifteen minutes early. If this was how every session was to go, she was going to have to find another star inmate to write her book on, and fast.

Maybe Poison Ivy... Harleen thought, but before she could really process what was happening, Guy had pushed her against their bedroom wall. 

His mouth was covering hers sloppily, in a way that made it feel less like a kiss and more like he was trying to smother her. He tried to push his tongue into her mouth, but she was so surprised that her lips were clamped shut.

“Huh, you really are tense tonight, Harl,” he whispered to her. “It’s okay baby, I’ll make it all better.” Guy kissed his way from her earlobe to her collarbone. He didn’t feel normal, or comfortable. Her loving Guy tasted different. Grapefruit instead of pineapple. Watermelon instead of lavender. His mouth was hesitant around hers. All the while, Harleen was wondering what made him do that. She recalled telling him that she needed help relaxing, but she meant something more like the tub of Ben & Jerry’s mint chocolate chip ice cream in the freezer. Maybe a nice warm bath and a rerun of Friends, or a glass of champagne and Guy lovingly rubbing her feet. But whatever she meant, it definitely wasn’t this, whatever this was.

Guy was on his knees now, pulling her shirt up over her stomach, and Harleen resisted the urge to push it down. She didn’t want this. She didn’t want his hands on her thighs, she wanted them held in hers. She didn’t want his lips on her tummy, she wanted them split apart and laughing, like the Joker’s after their session.

And that was when she questioned herself. Why didn’t she want her fiancée down on his knees? Why was this hard for her? Why was the Joker, of all people, at the forefront of her thoughts?

She didn’t stop Guy. Later that night, when they were both naked and sweaty and still a little out of breath, Guy kissed her again. It was less forceful, more comfortable. 

“I’m glad I helped you calm down, babe. You’re a lot prettier when you’re smilin’, ya know.”

It was sweet, she thought, that he believed he helped her. So she pasted on a grin and rolled over to sleep. He had only wanted to see her smile, where was the crime in that?

When her thoughts went back to the Joker, she pinched her thigh and winced, hoping Guy didn’t notice. After all, he only wanted to help.

Even if he had made everything so much worse.

~~~

#2: Frank Boles

Frank Boles was not a nice man. Harleen new this. That’s why she had always ignored him in the halls, even when he whistled or catcalled her, blatantly ignoring the ring on her hand and the one on his own. 

Frank Boles stole bagels from the kitchen just so the night guards wouldn’t have any. He figured out the cameras blind spots so he could beat inmates, and when they screamed, no one noticed over the noise of the asylum.

Frank Boles once left his daughter sitting outside her high school for three hours because she had skipped first period. He didn’t buy his wife presents, not even on Christmas.

Frank Boles was a bully. He even bullied Aaron Cash, the guard who lost his hand to Killer Croc. Everyone in the asylum, even the inmates, knew that was definitely not cool.

Frank Boles was not a nice man.

And Frank Boles was kissing her.

It happened so quickly. One minute she was enjoying her second cup of coffee, the next she was pressed up against the counter with Frank Boles grinding his teeth into her lips. It was not an enjoyable experience to say the least. And he had made her drop her favorite mug.

His kiss was desperate and clumsy, and he felt wrong. Very, very wrong. He felt like burning, like liquor. She wanted to wash the taste out of her mouth, but it had made its way down her throat to her stomach.

Harleen felt his tongue slide in her mouth. It felt awkward against her own, like they both knew they shouldn’t be invading each other’s space and should move out immediately.

She wanted to think it was a mistake. That maybe today was bring your spouse to work day, and maybe from the back she looked a bit like a brunette. She hadn’t done her roots in a while, after all.

Just as she was preparing her apology to Guy for not inviting him to the Asylum, Frank moaned out her name. It was then that Harleen figured it was not a mistake and he intended to take this as far as it could go before someone walked in.

Seeing as Harleen could barely kiss her fiancée anymore, she did not want to be kissing Frank Boles. But as if he could read her mind, Frank wrapped one hand around her throat and the other gripped her hip.

“Say one fucking word. I fucking dare you. You’ll lose your job so quick even the Joker won’t see it coming.”

The Joker. What would he think of all this? Probably not much, in all honesty. He was never one for personal dilemmas. He’d say something like, “I told you the world was cruel, little harlequin. You should go crazy. Imagine the things you could do to Frankie then!” And then he’d monologue about the vagueness of human morality and how bendable morals are when put under pressure. An interesting discussion for sure, but not very helpful.

And Harleen needed that. She needed the distraction of his ideology to keep herself sane. It was backward logic, but it worked for her, and it worked for him too. She was getting closer and closer to his breaking point, she could feel it! All she needed was some more time and less men trying to kiss her and she would be set. She couldn’t lose her job to a day guard.

So she let Frank kiss her. His hand had brushed against her crotch when Doctor Leland walked into the kitchenette. Frank reached for a donut next to her, and whispered in her ear, “Good girl. I’ll make sure to come back again soon.” He walked away without another word, and Harleen knelt down to pick up the shattered remains of her coffee cup.

He never got a chance to visit her again. Two months later, Harleen had shrugged off her doctor’s coat for a red and black leotard, and traded her stiff upper lip for a white-toothed grin.

The day she broke the Joker out of Arkham, Frankie was unlucky enough to be one of the guards on duty.

Frank Boles was the first person Harley Quinn ever killed. She left the other guards unconscious.

~~~

#3: The Joker

She didn’t mean for it to happen.

It started as a normal session. As normal as you can be with the Joker, but still. He was monologuing about something or other. It had to do with the morality of torturing innocent people for science, that much she was sure of. She started to get lost when he somehow tied everything to Schrödinger’s cat, and her mind wandered to how red his lips were. But still, it was normal. Him, with his moralities and judgements of the human mind, and her, with her fantasies about his lips and other body parts. Would they taste like cherries? Was his hair soft or as greasy as it looked? The Joker’s words were slowing down, but she didn’t notice. Was his skin hot or cold? Were his teeth yellow from lack of brushing or did they just look that way against his skin? He was mumbling nonsense phrases now. Was all the hair on his body green? Did he even have body hair left?

He stopped talking altogether when she thought about finding out the answers to those questions herself. She was about to ask him why he stopped, when she noticed the distinct lack of handcuffs around his wrists and ankles.

He was looming over her now.

The news didn’t get it right. He was much taller than he seemed next to Batman, but everyone looked small next to him. And his eyes were bright green, like his hair, but when caught in the light they looked yellow. Like a cat. A cat that was about to pounce and rip her into a million pieces.

Harleen stood, just to get a closer look at those cat eyes, but she still fell six inches or so short of them. He took a step forward. She took one back. Another step. Another retreat. Her chair fell to the floor with a clang and she jumped. He took two steps to make up the distance.

“Harley.”

She was against the wall now. She was still trying to find every shade of green in his eyes.

“Harley.”

There were his pupils, tiny black dots in the middle of a sea of emerald. Surrounding those dots was lime green, and speckles of chartreuse. They were the color of seaweed too, olive and pear and parakeet. Freshly mowed grass didn’t do them justice, and just around the edge of his iris, right before it cut to white, was a dark ring of jade.

They were beautiful.

“Harley.”

He was beautiful.

“Harley.”

She was out of her trance now, but she felt like she had fallen into a different one. All her life she had waited for this moment, an opportunity to be beautiful too. It didn’t matter that it was just for him. He was the only one who saw the world how it really was. If he thought she was beautiful, then she must be.

But part of her refused. That stubborn little Doctor Quinzel, who had always made perfect grades and never partied or drank too much, she needed to go back home to Guy, to that life. She needed to be pretty for Guy, needed to marry him and have kids and get a cat since their apartment didn’t allow dogs. She needed pretty. 

She wanted beautiful.

“We shouldn’t do this,” she whispered. She wasn’t very convincing. “It’s unprofessional.” He chuckled at that.

“Oh my dear, darling doctor, when has that ever stopped me?” And he kissed her.

And- oh.

His mouth covered hers and for a second she forgot to breathe. He felt like what she thought every one was supposed to feel like. Soft and hard and magical and fireworks and candy and black and red and green and purple and that feeling you get when the plane drops a few feet when you’re thousands of feet in the air. He felt like Guy, but oh, so much better. There was tongue and teeth and she loved every second of it. His lips weren’t cherry, they were blood. Metallic, warm, smooth. She ran her fingers through his feather soft hair and she swore she heard him purr down deep in his throat. How she wanted to pry the sound out of it, to open him up and reveal all his dirty little secrets. She was clawing at his chest now. His skin was hot, feverish even, and she had a fleeting thought that she should get him to the med bay, but he scraped his teeth along her jaw and she forgot all about it. The paper thin uniform of Arkham was easily pushed up for her to scrape at his smooth stomach and back. He tore the buttons clean off her coat and was going to do the same to her blouse, but before he could they heard a knock at the door.

“Doctor Quinzel? You okay in there?”

Harley caught her breathe. The two were still a mess and she couldn’t risk being walked in on in that state, so she did what any sane person would do.

She stared the Joker down, and she lied.

“I’m f-fine.” She cleared her throat. “I was just teaching the Joker a new technique for channeling his anger into something more... productive. Unfortunately this method involves, uh, quite a bit of noise. Very sorry to worry you, Rich.”

For a moment, Rich didn’t respond, and Harley was worried he hadn’t believed her.

“You’re good, doc. Just wanted to check.”

Harley sighed in relief. The Joker handed her the crumpled coat and straightened his own jumpsuit. “Well, doctor,” he started, adjusting the handcuffs and clicking them into place, “I believe our time is up.”

The Joker was taken back to his cell rather uneventfully. Harley had faced the wall when the guards came in, under the guise that she was adding to her notes, so as they didn’t see the state of her makeup. As soon as they were gone, she rushed to the nearest bathroom and locked the door behind her. 

Her hair was out of its tight bun and had the broken hair tie tangled within it. Her glasses had miraculously stayed on her face, but they were crooked and nearly broken. Her makeup was ruined, obviously. There were hickeys across her neck and collarbone, and even one on her cheek near her ear. She looked down and noticed blood under her fingernails.

This was, to say the least, not normal. At all.

She wished she could go back in time and do the day over again, partly to rid herself of the experience, and partly to relive it again. It wasn’t the most fun dilemma. On the one hand, she just made out with a sadistic, sociopathic murderer. On the other hand, she felt free.

Quite the dilemma in deed.

Harley was in tears at this point, out of joy or sorrow she didn’t know. All she knew was that she really, really wanted to scream. 

She listened to the asylum. Patients screamed all the time. Surely one little doctor doing the same wouldn’t cause any trouble. And at this point, Harley was past the point of caring anyway.

She tilted her head back and screamed.

Nothing happened.

She felt a bit better, and was glad she did it, until a few seconds later when she heard laughter from across the asylum.

Three weeks later, Guy Kopski was found dead outside her apartment complex with a face-splitting smile.

A week after that, Harley Quinn was born.

~~~

#4: Poison Ivy

Harley had a pattern. At least once every six months, she would run from or get kicked out by the Joker, declare she would never love again, vow to kill him, and flee to Pammy’s house for a week until the cycle started over again. The Joker didn’t mind this, so long as she didn’t go around slandering his good name, which she usually did. He found it quite easy to retrain her, however, so her fits of rage never lasted long. And it was nice to get her out of his hair.

Harley didn’t mind much either. A girl needed her space every once in a while. Plus, she got to hang out with her bestest friend in the whole world!

And that friend was decidedly less happy with this arrangement than they were.

“Harley, you need to leave that clown. He’s no good for you.”

“But I did, Red!” Harley shoved more pasta into her mouth. “Dat’s why I’m ‘ere!”

“Don’t talk with your mouth full, Harls.”

“Shorry.”

“Besides, everyone knows within the week you’ll be back with him.” 

Harley got quite offended at this. “Who says that? I’m never, ever, ever going back to that dingbat ever again!”

“Right, and I suppose your clothes just magically disappeared from my closet then?”

Now she was ashamed. She thought Pam wouldn’t notice, which in hindsight was a stupid thing to think. Pam had eyes and ears everywhere. And Harley knew about most of them.

It was a shame indeed. She had really tried this time, too! But all that green in Pammy’s house brought out too many buried memories for her to move past. Harley was the Joker’s moll, that was the whole gag! A runaway therapist chasing her crazy patient, all the while running from a bat in spandex. It was a funny joke with an unforeseen punchline that was bound to end with somebody dead. It was probably going to be her. Almost definitely.

But hey, that’s the thrill of it!

“Harley, are you listening to me?”

“Huh? Oh, sure Red! Heard every word! But, just for the people in the back, could you say all of it again?”

Pamela sighed. There was no use trying to reason with Harley, even though she wanted her closest friend by her side and not at the clown’s feet.

But it didn’t matter that Pam felt things about her friend that she couldn’t explain. Or that the only person she thought was worth saving happened to be Harley. Or that every time they hugged, she felt more content than she had ever been with LeGrande or Harvey Dent. No matter the weather, Harley Quinn would always return to the Joker. There was no changing that. It was in her nature to run from Ivy’s open arms.

Didn’t make it any less painful though.

A few hours after dinner, the two women were cuddled on the thin mattress watching I Love Lucy. Harley was trying to explain the psychology behind Lucy Ricardo, how all of her motivations were sound and if she had just done this instead of that, maybe her plan would’ve worked out! Pamela on the other hand was too busy watching Harley’s mouth move to really comprehend what she was saying. Besides, Harley talked a hundred miles per minute, so she wouldn’t have been able to keep up anyway.

But, oh, was Harley smart. She could talk her way out of anything, and if she couldn’t, flitting always did the trick. Her mind was more jumbled than anyone’s, but she always managed to make complete sense nearly all the time. It was one thing Pam loved about her Harley.

No, not my Harley! That kind of thinking would just get her into trouble. Though she hated him, the Joker wasn’t one to mess with, and claiming his possessions was a one way ticket to Deadville.

But, maybe just for tonight...

Pamela decided that as long as Harley was under her roof, she was hers and hers alone, and not even Batman could change that.

Harley was looking at Red with a strange look in her eye.

“What’s wrong, Harl?”

“Oh nothin’, it’s just, I ain’t ever seen you grin like that before. Everything okay?”

Pamela nodded and tried to suppress the smile, but Harley kept leaning closer and closer, and she smelled like bubblegum and happiness...

Just like that, Pam was kissing her.

For Harley, this was a complete surprise, but not an unwelcome one. She had always wondered what Pam would feel like. 

And she felt good.

She was different than the Joker by a mile, but it was a good different, like a dog is different from a cat. One is hyper and energetic and you can’t get enough, but the other you want to curl up with and never let go. While the Joker did everything with fervor, Red was much more relaxed, lazy even. She tasted like mint and pine tree. Everything was soft and cozy, and her skin was warm instead of hot. Harley ran her fingers through Pammy’s hair and it felt like silk. The redhead pushed her onto her back, straddled her, and kissed her a bit harder than before. Her lips didn’t move from Harley’s mouth, though. She was very different from the Joker indeed.

Just when Harley was really getting comfortable, Pammy pulled back.

“I’m sorry, Harl. I didn’t mean-“

“No, no, no, don’t- don’t do that. This is good. Don’t ruin good.”

They didn’t kiss again. Instead, they went back to cuddling, and watched I Love Lucy late into the night.

The next day, Harley fled in the middle of the night. She left a note that read: Don’t ruin a good thing, Red. Let’s try this again sometime. -HQ

After that, Harley was Pamela’s for one week every six months, and she was determined to make the most of it.

~~~

#5: Floyd Lawton

Harley never liked Floyd. He was much too serious, and he never laughed. Not even a giggle! Usually she never had to work with him, since he was a hired hand and Mr. J preferred to do his work in person, but unfortunately for her, he just so happened to be a part of the super secret killing team she was on. She didn’t want to be a part of Task Force X, but she didn’t have a choice. None of them did.

During the months before their second mission together, Harley had gradually tried to make friends with her teammates. Digger was funny at times, but he was way too interested in getting in her pants and she did not need more people trying to kiss her, no siree! She had enough to deal with already. Chato wasn’t the friendliest of the bunch, probably because of his tragic backstory and all, so he wasn’t much of a talker. Caitlyn was fun, but she would betray any of them in a second, and Harley knew better than to let her guard down around the ice freak. Waylon and Minerva were a bit too, well, animalistic for Harley, and for the brief time she spoke to them they only responded in growls and hisses. The only other options were Floyd and Duela Dent, and Harley didn’t speak to her for a number of reasons, most of them being that she thought she was the Joker’s daughter and had a god complex to rival Batman’s.

So, that left Deadshot.

Oy vey.

A few weeks later, Harley was lucky enough to be assigned a reconnaissance mission with Floyd. There would be very few distractions, which meant plenty of time to talk.

Harley had barely opened her mouth before Lawton cut her off.

“Don’t even think about it, Quinn.”

She snapped her mouth shut.

They sat in silence for a while, Floyd occasionally checking his scope for any activity. Harley opted to lean against a dumpster and pick dirt from her nails. “Ya know,” she started, “I don’t think I’ve ever heard you laugh before.”

“I don’t laugh.”

“Huh. Sounds pretty boring if you ask me. You’re kinda like Bats that way.”

“Trust me, girlie, I’m nothin’ like Batman.”

“Oh sure. They all say that.” Harley turned back to her nails. Floyd fidgeted for a second before responding.

“What do you mean?”

Harley grinned. Finally, they were getting somewhere! “Well, most criminals hate the Batman, right? So they hate bein’ compared to him. What they don’t see is that they’re more like him than anyone else. Who else would dress up like a Bat and jump from roof to roof besides the criminally insane?”

“I’m not insane, Harley.”

“Floyd, you kill people for a livin’. People like you and I can’t be normal and do the things we do. You don’t just sleep like a kitten after a murder without bein’ a little insane. Trust me, you might not be diagnosed yet, but something in you is broken.”

Floyd didn’t respond, just readjusted his scope and checked for strange movements. Maybe the doctor had a point. Nobody in Gotham was normal, not even Bruce Wayne. Anyone living in that hell hole had to be a little coo-koo. 

“You see what I mean yet?”

“Maybe doc, just maybe.”

Nothing had moved for three hours, so Waller decided to cut the mission short. Harley, for one, was grateful. It was getting cold and her corset and leather pants didn’t provide the best protection from the wind. Floyd noticed her shivering and shrugged off his jacket. “Here, you keep it. This suit’s hot enough anyway.” Harley smiled and tried to say thank you, but he beat her to the punch with a sweet kiss.

His lips were rough and his stubble scratched her chin, but he was gentle enough that it didn’t matter. He felt like a warm surprise on a winter day, like when your kid makes you that crappy hot chocolate that looks like watery shit. Not good, not familiar, but the gesture was nice enough to warrant a thanks and a pat on the head. Floyd tasted like soap and dirt, snow and fire, cinnamon and jalapeño: a mess of contradictions with a sniper rifle. Harley was the one to pull away.

“Thanks, Floyd. For the jacket.”

“No problem.”

They both walked to the van without another word.

Usually after something like this, things can be quite awkward between the people involved. But for Floyd and Harley, it only brought them closer together. They sat together in the mess hall, traded secret notes in the hallway, and argued philosophy out on missions. Harley thought people should learn from her newfound friendship with Floyd, that things didn’t have to end if they went down the wrong path. You’d just have to do some backtracking along the way.

Harley kept Floyd’s jacket, and when her puddin’ busted her out of Belle Reve, she snuck it into Pammy’s closet so it would always be there if she decided to try that path again.

She did, many years later, and though she would come to mourn her Deadshot and a few of the other old Suicide Squad members, she never regretted her decision.

She always kept the jacket.

~~~

#6 #1: Bruce Wayne

Harley was standing in the middle of a ballroom. Bruce Wayne was throwing a New Year’s charity ball event thing in honor of the victims of the Joker’s “Christmas parade.” Despite many Gothamites beliefs, Harley had absolutely nothing to do with the event. In fact, she hand not been involved in any criminal activity for nearly two months, and while the middle and lower class were wary of her, the elite had accepted her as a reformed lunatic with a pretty face. While it was annoying at first, she quickly became used to the extra attention from paparazzi and the like. Everyone always asked her why she had changed, and her answer was always the same.

During her stint on the Suicide Squad, Harley had been “involved” with Floyd Lawton, a criminal better known as Deadshot. Unfortunately, Floyd was killed saving the lives of his friends and teammates, and Harley was left to grieve. Even more unfortunately, she soon had a run in with the Joker, which ended with her escaping from his prison bleeding and desperate, where she was saved by the Batman.

Harley had expected for Batman to take her to Arkham where she would rot until her inevitable escape, but instead he knocked her unconscious. When she woke up, she was in a soft bed with a plate of waffles and bacon slathered in syrup on the nightstand. She would come to find out that Batman had taken her to Bruce Wayne’s mansion with the intention of letting the billionaire playboy rehabilitate her.

And that’s how she ended up here, at the Bruce Wayne New Year’s charity ball extravaganza, surrounded by press and wealthy snobs who didn’t want to rub elbows with her kind. 

In short, Harley was not having fun. 

She was getting really close to punching a particularly nosy reporter when she felt a hand at her wrist. Bruce Wayne, her bat in shining armor (she knew about his night job, but he didn’t do a great job of not making it obvious), had come to rescue her once again.

“Hiya, Brucie!” She squealed.

“Hi, Harleen. Are you having fun?”

“Oh sure, once you get past the bozos in the suits, everything’s just swell!” 

Bruce chuckles. It still unnerved her, to hear the Batman laugh. It was a much less terrifying sound than she had imagined. “I’m sorry, Harleen, I know you aren’t into these kinds of things, but I thought it might be nice for you to get out of your room once and a while.” The music died down to a soft thrum and Bruce took her hands in his.

“Yeah, I guess it’s alright.”

“If you say so.”

“I do.”

“Hmm. May I have this dance, Ms. Quinzel?”

“Only if you call me Harley. Everyone does!”

“Okay, Harley.” Her name sounded much more special than it really was when he said it. “May I have this dance?”

“You may.”

Bruce our his hands on her waist, careful not to touch her skin. She, in turn, placed her hands on his shoulders. They weren’t as hard as she thought they’d be, but boy were they broad. Her pinkie fingers barely reached the edge of his shoulder when she flexed her hands.

While she was obsessing over his physique, Bruce was focused on Harleen’s smile. She seemed genuinely happy to be there in his arms, and in his home. She was beautiful when she was away from the Joker. No more makeup or costume or pigtails. She could be herself around him, and he liked the new Harley, one he had never seen before.

He didn’t know how he felt about her. He didn’t think it was love, but he thought it could be. Maybe if Selena gave up crime and moved away from Gotham, and maybe if Thalia finally took over the League of Assassins, and maybe if Diana decided to settle down with Steve Trevor, then maybe he could think about loving Harleen Quinzel. But right now he was content to have her swaying in time with him to a tune he had heard a thousand times before.

Harley laid her head on Bruce’s chest. She could hear his steady heartbeat pounding in time with the music. She traced patterns on his chest and laced her fingers through the baby hair on the back of his neck. Closing her eyes, she relaxed into him and his heartbeat. 

He tilted her head back and stared deep in her eyes. There they were, two crazy people in a room full of other crazy people just trying to make it through the day. 

Bruce leaned down so his nose was touching hers, his gaze flickering to her lips. “Do you want this, Harleen?” He looked in her eyes again. “A life with me?”

Harley bit her lip. She felt safe in his arms, like nothing could touch her ever again.

But Harley never liked safe.

It’s why she started her job at Arkham. Why she dated Guy all those years ago, the boy who rode a motorcycle and had tattoos and sixteen. It’s why she didn’t stop Frank, and why she killed him for it later. Harley fell for the Joker, the farthest person from safe, and fell again for Pammy and Deadshot, who were both murderous psychopaths. All her life Harley had strived for normal, only to find out she didn’t want it. She wanted things that only the bad guys could offer her.

Batman couldn’t give her what she wanted, and Bruce couldn’t give her what she needed.

“Harley?”

He was asking her, again, if she wanted him. She wondered what she would’ve said if Guy or Frank had asked her that. Probably no. Maybe, if he had asked, she never would’ve gotten caught up with the Joker. And maybe she wouldn’t have Pammy to tell her off when she went back to him, because she always went back to him. Maybe she wouldn’t have to mourn Floyd, one of her closest friends and her maybe lover. There were a lot of maybes in her life and Bruce was one of them. But she had to make a decision now, one she couldn’t take back. Batman or the Joker. Guy or Deadshot. Frank or Poison Ivy.

Harleen Quinzel or Harley Quinn?

“Do you want this?”

“No.”

The next day, Harley was gone. She left a note for him. All it said was: 

I’m sorry Bruce, but we both know I don’t belong here. Try not to hit me too hard when we run into each other again, kay?

Love, Harley

Ps: Promise I won’t tell Mr. J about your night job! 

When Batman recaptured Harley Quinn, he made sure to take her down with as few bruises as possible. She thanked him with a kiss on the cheek as she was wheeled into Arkham, and he disappeared before the guards could see him blush.

**Author's Note:**

> So. That... happened. I word vomited this out at three in the morning a few nights ago and decided to expand upon it. It’s part of a larger universe I’m working on, so if you liked this and you think I should continue or elaborate on it, comment down below! Everything is appreciated, and I hope you enjoy! Sorry for any spelling or grammar mistakes.


End file.
